The Bhagavad Gita The Gospel of Selfless Action or The Gita According to Gandhi Sacred Texts Series www.universaltheosophy.com “I have an impression that the bulk of the readers of this book will be students. And let me make it clear that I lay no more claim to scholarship than does Gandhiji! but I am myself a student—as I hope to remain until my dying day—and it is out of sympathy for the needs of the people of my kind that I have presumed to introduce this additional matter.# " $ahadev %esai! Gandhi&s biographer! personal secretary, and father of 'arayan! concerning his own introduction and this translation into English of Gandhi&s Gu arati version. “Fifty*one years after his death Gandhi&s non*violence seems to be the only alternative to non*e+istence! his consideration of unity of life inspires ecologists today, his ideas of simplicity and non*possession are the ultimate answers to the culture of waste we are living in today.# — 'arayan %esai in ,$y Gandhi& Sacred Texts Series www.universaltheosophy.com Foreword The following pages by $ahadev %esai* are an ambitious project. It represents his unremitting labours during his prison life in 1933-34. (very page is evidence of his scholarship and e+haustive study of all he could lay hands upon regarding the Bhagavad Gita! poetically called the Song 2elestial by Sir (dwin Arnold. The immediate cause of this labour of love was my translation in Gu arati of the divine book as I understood it. In trying to give a translation of my meaning of the Gita! he found himself writing an original commentary on the Gita. -Gandhiji is referring here to $ahadev %esai! his disciple and personal secretary for some thirty years. It also was $ahadev who translated from Gu arati to English Gandhiji&s autobiography, The Story of $y (+periments with Truth. The book might have been published during his lifetime! if I could have made time to go through the manuscript. I read some portions with him! but e+igencies of my work had to interrupt the reading. Then followed the imprisonments of August ./13! and his sudden death within six days of our imprisonment. All of his immediate friends decided to give his reverent study of the Gita to the public. He had copies typed for his (nglish friends who were impatient to see the commentary in print. And Pyarelal! who was collaborator with $ahadev %esai for many years! went through the whole manuscript and undertook to perform the difficult task of proof reading. Hence this publication. )rankly! I do not pretend to any scholarship. I have! therefore! contended myself with showing the genesis of $ahadev %esai’s effort. In so far as the translation part of the volume is concerned! I can vouch for its accuracy. He carried out the meaning of the original translation. I may add too that Pyarelal has interfered with the original only and in rare cases where it was considered to be essential! an interference which $ahadev %esai would! in my opinion! have gladly accepted! had he been alive. — M. K. Gandhi, On the train to Madras! 20th January! 1946 i Sacred Texts Series www.universaltheosophy.com Anasaktiyoga (Introduction) It was at 6osani in Almora on 24th 9une! ./3/! i.e., after two years& waiting! that I finished the introduction to my translation of the Gita. The whole was then published in due course. It has been translated in Hindi, Bengali and $arathi. There has been an insistent demand for an (nglish translation. I finished the translation of the introduction at the ;eravda prison. Since my discharge it has lain with friends and now I give it to the reader. Those! who take no interest in the Book of <ife! will forgive the trespass on these columns.* To those who are interested in the poem and treat it as their guide in life! my humble attempt might prove of some help. — M.K.G. -This translation appeared in the columns of the ;oung India! :*=*./0.! from where it has been reproduced here. I 1. 9ust as acted upon by the affection of co-workers like Swami Anand and others! I wrote $y (+periments with Truth! so has it been regarding my rendering of the Gita. “>e shall be able to appreciate your meaning of the message of the Gita! only when we are able to study a translation of the whole te+t by yourself! with the addition of such notes as you may deem necessary. I do not think it is ust on your part to deduce ahimsa etc. from stray verses!# thus spoke Swami Anand to me during the non-cooperation days. I felt the force of his remarks. I! therefore! told him that I would adopt his suggestion when I got the time. Shortly afterwards I was imprisoned. %uring my incarceration I was able to study the Gita more fully. I went reverently through the Gu arati translation of the <okamanya’s great work. He had kindly presented me with the $arathi original and the translations in Gu arati and Hindi, and had asked me! if I could not tackle the original! at least to go through the Gu arati translation. I had not been able to follow the advice outside the prison walls. But when I was imprisoned I read the Gu arati translation. This reading whetted my appetite for more and I glanced through several works on the Gita. 2. $y first acquaintance with the Gita began in .===*=/ with the verse translation by Sir (dwin Arnold known as the Song 2elestial. 7n reading it, I felt a keen desire to read a Gu arati translation. And I read as many translations as I could lay hold of. But all such reading can give me no passport for presenting my own translation. Then again my knowledge of Sanskrit is ii Sacred Texts Series www.universaltheosophy.com limited! my knowledge of Gu arati too is in no way scholarly. How could I then dare present the public with my translation@ 3. It has been my endeavor! as also that of some companions! to reduce to practice the teaching of the Gita as I have understood it. The Gita has become for us a spiritual reference book. I am aware that we ever fail to act in perfect accord with the teaching. The failure is not due to want of effort, but is in spite of it. (ven though the failures we seem to see rays of hope. The accompanying rendering contains the meaning of the Gita message which this little band is trying to enforce in its daily conduct. 4. Again this rendering is designed for women! the commercial class! the so- called Shudras and the like who have little or no literary e?uipment, who have neither the time nor the desire to read the Gita in the original and yet who stand in need of its support. In spite of my Gu arati being unscholarly! I must own to having the desire to leave to the Gu aratis! through the mother tongue! whatever knowledge I may possess. I do indeed wish that at a time when literary output of a ?uestionable character is pouring upon the Gu aratis! they should have before them a rendering the ma ority can understand of a book that is regarded as unrivalled for its spiritual merit and so withstand the overwhelming flood of unclean literature. 5. This desire does not mean any disrespect to the other renderings. They have their own place. But I am not aware of the claim made by the translators of enforcing their meaning of the Gita in their own lives. At the back of my reading there is the claim of an endeavour to enforce the meaning in my own conduct for an unbroken period of forty years. )or this reason I do indeed harbour the wish that all Gu arati men or women wishing to shape their conduct according to their faith! should digest and derive strength from the translation here presented. 6. $y co-workers! too, have worked at this translation. $y knowledge of Sanskrit being very limited! I should not have full confidence in my literal translation. To that e+tent, therefore! the translation has passed before the eyes of Vinoba, Kaka Kalelkar! Mahadev Desai and Kishorlal Mashruwala. iii Sacred Texts Series www.universaltheosophy.com II 7. Now about the message of the Gita. 8. (ven in .===*=/! when I first became ac?uainted with the Gita! I felt that it was not a historical work! but that, under the guise of physical warfare! it described the duel that perpetually went on in the hearts mankind! and that physical warfare was brought in merely to make the description of the internal duel more alluring. This preliminary intuition became more confirmed on a closer study of religion and the Gita. A study of the $ahabharata gave it added confirmation. I do not regard the $ahabharata as a historical work in the accepted sense. The Adiparva contains powerful evidence in support of my opinion. By ascribing to the chief actors superhuman or subhuman origins! the great Byasa made short work the history of kings and their peoples. The persons therein described may be historical! but the author of the $ahabharata has used them merely to drive home his religious theme. 9. The author of the $ahabharata has not established the necessity of physical warfareD on the contrary he has proved its futility. He has made the victors shed tears of sorrow and repentance! and has left them nothing but a legacy of miseries.